Jiggedy-jig

Thanks to Goodreads readers for their reviews of A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage, which I had not noticed before I left; now I am back from West Chester Poetry Conference (yay, good attendance on our panel and everybody dealt with the time issue well--I am a fierce chair, perhaps? or more likely just lucky in having Ned Balbo, Jill Bialosky, and Jane Satterfield as panelists) but have jumped from the the poetry frying pan into the Cooperstown fire and will post more shortly. Right now my head is light with sleeplessness... floating away to the Land of Nod.

On the road again--

Need to be chopping off the hair, packing, and running off to West Chester Poetry Conference, so I'll just say that I'll be chairing a panel on poets who write in other genres on Friday afternoon. New: I just picked up an interview about A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage with Bill Jaker of "Off the Page" at WSKG, Binghamton for July 24th.

Poetry Monday

Here I am at Empire Toyota in Oneonta, looking at the final .pdf version of The Foliate Head, a beautiful thing with illustrations by Clive Hicks-Jenkins--the loveliest testament to this friendship so far--and immaculately designed by Andrew Wakelin.  Clive and I cannot thank Andrew enough for the time lavished on this project, forthcoming from Stanza Press in the U.K.

And after that I must write my talk for Friday, when I'm chairing a panel on poets who write in other genres for the West Chester Poetry Conference. The introduction and poet-introductions are done, and I know what I want to say--just hoping life gives me a little space today!

Last night was a grand break, a lovely party with artists and writers and doctors and reverend doctors...

Praise for "The Throne of Psyche": Kim Bridgford

When I think of Marly Youmans’ work, the word that comes to mind is “magic.” By this, I mean not only her language, but her evocation of mystery. Youmans’ poems always seem utterly new and startlingly familiar. Moreover, she has admirable range in terms of subject matter and tone. While I tend to favor her poems about the mythological, Youmans shows astonishing skill, whatever the subject. She is a poet working at the height of her powers.

          Kim Bridgford, editor, Mezzo Cammin
          Director, West Chester University Poetry Conference

The Throne of Psyche (Mercer University Press, 2011)

Dryadic: among beech and maple

No matter how much the old beech raised up arms
against us, we could not help but laugh,
even when it boomed and whistled.



Little forests sprang up on the elephant's foot...



The wish bone of the giants.



The dryad drew the parrot into the tree
where it stayed, dimly visible from the outside.



Lithe Willendorf Venus. Not stone but tree.

Creative Joy / West Chester

Poet Jennifer Reeser and West Chester Poetry Conference
Director Kim Bridgford at a 90th birthday party for Richard Wilbur.
As he told me that his birthday was March 1, I hope he has had a long
Mad Hatter's tea party sort of celebration.  June 10, 2011, West Chester.

How does poetry delight us? To begin with the most inclusive reason, poetry delights us as a manifestation of energy. A poem is an act, and should give us the certainty, the reflected pleasure, that comes from participating in a successful accomplishment.  --Donald A. Stauffer, The Golden Nightingale, 1949

Several attendees wishing for a signature from Richard Wilbur.
Poet Rhina Espaillat at left.  June 10, 2011.

If you would like to see me with a brilliantly lit nose (stage lights, not alcohol) and hear me read some poems, you may wander over to youtube, where poet Annabelle Moseley has posted videos of the Mezzo Cammin 5th anniversary reading:  Kim Bridgford and moderator, Rhina Espaillat, Julie Kane, Leslie Monsour, Annabelle herself, and me. A video of the conversation at the close is also up. Individual readings by each of the participants have been posted as well. 

Three poets at a birthday party:
Jennifer Reeser, Kim Bridgford, and me.

The final joy of the artist is creation, and the greatness of his creation will depend upon the completeness with which he embraces and accepts all materials.  --Donald A. Stauffer, The Golden Nightingale, 1949

The laughers are poets Leslie Monsour and David Mason.
You can catch the birthday boy at right, next to Rhina Espaillat.

There is in the creative joy an acceptance of what life brings, because we have understood the beauty of what it brings, or a hatred of death for what it takes away, which arouses within us, through some sympathy perhaps with other men, an energy so noble, so powerful, that we laugh aloud and mock, in the terror or the sweetness of our exaltation, at death and oblivion.  --W. B. Yeats, The Trembling of the Veil, 1922.

This week, Mezzo Cammin twice--

The new issue of "Mezzo Cammin" is up--
work by Taylor Jillian Altman, Sarah Busse,
Nicole Caruso Garcia, Brittany Hill, Lisa Huffaker,
 Jean Kreiling, Barbara Loots, Charlotte Mandel,
Annabelle Moseley, Angela Alaimo O'Donnell,
Ann Walker Phillips, Carolyn Raphael, Hollins Robbins,
Catherine Tufariello, Doris Watts, Joyce Wilson,
and Marly Youmans.
As ever, I am the little red caboose.

Below are some 3-line tastes of my poems from the just-posted issue of Mezzo Cammin, edited by poet Kim Bridgford. I hope you are enticed enough to go read the rest--mine and all the other poems! My four poems are from The Book of the Red King, and there are other of my Red King poems elsewhere on the site.

Coming up next: I will be reading at the West Chester Poetry Conference with Mezzo Cammin on Friday morning. Information and listed readers are under the excerpts. Hope to see some early risers there!


The Rose of Laughter, Laughter of the Rose

The cats are tucked in the sphinx position.
The Fool kneels down to imitate the cats.


His hat, a black-and-white boy-balzo, rolls

The Grail

The Fool knows better. He knows all the things
The world says. He knows every rippling field
And every shower of orchard petals


The Fool and the Sublime

And when the Red King sings on top the tower called the Spear
While the full moon, delicate and bright and ringed with rainbow,
Rises like a vast soap bubble over the chimney pots

 
The Red King's Blossom-Tide

The Red King's orchard-close is blossoming,
And fragrance reaches as far as ships at sea
And regions of the far barbarians.





Friday, June 10, 2011
8:15-9:45 a.m.
PANEL 9: Mezzo Cammin Fifth-Anniversary Reading


Kim Bridgford (Chair)
Rhina Espaillat
Julie Kane
Leslie Monsour
Annabelle Moseley
Marly Youmans